Our Research > Research Strategy

Our Research Strategy

There have been great advancements in the treatment of adult cancer, but this has not always been the case for children and young adults. Our research is dedicated to ensuring we can change this.

Our Focus

Over the last 50 years many types of childhood cancer have seen improvement in survival rates. Although this progress is extremely welcome, many childhood cancers have seen little or no improvement.

The progress we have made comes at a cost due to the treatments used. Many former patients have long last physical vulnerabilities like the risk of heart disease and development of secondary cancers. Sadly over the last 20 years only 3 new treatments for children with cancer have been developed and damaging conventional therapies such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy are still being used.

Therefore the focus of our research is to facilitate a rapid progression from “Bench to Bedside”. This means enabling the discovery and the translation of new therapies from the laboratory to the clinic where they can directly benefit children with cancer. We also aim to be the charity of choice for researchers looking for support in the development of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of children with cancer that limit, or if possible, prevent the debilitating long term side-effects of many current treatments.

View our full strategy >

Our Research Objectives

General Research Objectives

The research aims of Kidscan are summarised by the following key objectives:

  • Grow a portfolio of research projects around our established research priorities and where possible wider issues in the field of childhood cancer.
  • Engage with patients and clinicians to understand the specific areas that are currently a priority in the field of children’s cancer research
  • Grow the pool or research talent in children’s cancer research and develop national and international research networks.
  • Promote and disseminate the outputs of our research wherever possible.
  • Ensure the translation of our funded research for public benefit.
  • Use our research base to influence government/industrial policy on the challenges associated with the treatment of children and young adults with cancer.
  • Encourage the widespread use of clinical trials in the treatment of children.
Specific Research Priorities

In short our research priorities include:

  • Translation of research data into new treatments wherever possible
  • Dissemination of research data in a timely manner to the wider scientific community
  • Discovery and development of new drugs for the treatment of children’s cancer
  • Focusing research funding into treatments for specific cancers where survival rates have lagged behind
  • Improving the number of clinical trials available for young adults
  • Investigating the genetic causes of children’s cancer in order to develop the next generation of targeted medicines
  • Developing new targeted gene therapies for children, where they differ to adults
  • Developing new approaches to therapy such as immunotherapy and gene editing, to aid a phased movement to more gentle treatments
  • Understand the cellular/pharmacological basis for drug resistance to allow the development of personalised treatments to minimise the risk of relapse.

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